Cedar Springs — Say you’re an eighth-grader who’s excelling in school, and you find yourself with some free time during the day. With no classwork to catch up on, how do you fill it?
Well, if you’re one of Shaye Rogers’ accelerated English language arts students at Cedar Springs Middle School, chances are you’re paying forward your academic success by helping out students in lower grade levels.
That’s how several students in Rogers’ class are using their free “Hawk Time,” which is reserved for catching up on assignments. Since the accelerated students tend not to have much work left undone, Rogers said, the class pivoted to what it calls “Genius Hour,” during which students get time to devote to a special project, club or activity.
‘In sixth grade I was really shy. I kind of struggled to talk to a teacher. … I knew … that it would be really nice to have someone closer to my age to be able to talk to and ask questions if I was struggling.’
— eighth-grader Bralynn Chapman, tutoring student coordinator
Eight of Rogers’ students are spending their “Genius Hour” in the newly launched peer-to-peer tutoring group, offering assistance to sixth- and seventh-grade students who need some extra help with their work.
“These students are hard-working, high-achieving and incredibly motivated to give back to their peers,” Rogers told SNN during a recent visit.
Three times a week, the students venture out into the school, stopping by different classrooms and checking in with teachers to identify students who could use a hand. Then the peer tutors work with those students at tables outside their classroom, going over lessons and working through problems with the younger students before sending them back to class.
“We just help the kids that want help, that are, like, struggling in classes,” said tutor Whitney Willoughby, “because we know that, like, when we were in sixth grade and we were struggling, we wanted help too.”
Taking the Pressure Off
Bralynn Chapman is the student coordinator for the tutoring group, and a driving force behind its inception. She acts as a liaison between the tutors, the teachers and the students being tutored.
Bralynn said the idea for the program came from a personal place.
“In sixth grade I was really shy,” she said. “I kind of struggled to talk to a teacher. … I knew, when I was in sixth grade, that it would be really nice to have someone closer to my age to be able to talk to and ask questions if I was struggling on something.”
Sometimes there’s just less pressure when you’re talking through things with a peer than there is when you’re asking a question in class, Bralynn said.
She worked with the rest of the group to divvy up subjects, and to come up with ways to demonstrate their impact, including using surveys to gauge students’ comfort with a subject before and after sessions with the peer tutors.
Bralynn said the experience has been rewarding so far.
“I’ve really enjoyed connecting with the kids,” she said. “They had similar struggles as when I was in sixth grade, so it’s nice to connect with them.”
Whitney feels the same way.
“It’s been really good. I feel like I’ve been helping the students a lot, and that I’ve been making progress with them,” she said.
The younger students, like sixth-grader Victoria Phillips, appreciate the tutors’ work as well.
“They’ve really helped,” said Victoria, getting some assistance from Bralynn and the other tutors with a multiplication activity.
Victoria said sometimes it just takes a kid to effectively explain something to another kid.
‘These students are hard-working, high-achieving and incredibly motivated to give back to their peers.’
— Cedar Springs Middle School teacher Shaye Rogers
Blazing a Trail
Rogers said the peer-to-peer tutoring group is likely to grow with time, as several other accelerated ELA students are interested in participating. She thought it would be best to start out with a small number, but as the tutors gain experience and the program continues to develop, there will eventually be room for more.
“The eight that we started with, they’re really the trailblazers,” Rogers said. “They’re helping me figure out what the needs are, they’re helping the teachers figure out how we can use the students, and once they’ve got a really established routine of what works for them, we can start funneling more kids into that as well.”
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